Friday, October 16, 2015

After watching an episode of Millionaire w/ Meredith a few years ago, I discovered that there was apparently a tiny hidden woman who was topless among all those crowds of tiny people my kids had to search through to find Waldo. We had so much fun searching for Waldo *back in the day*. How did I not know about this sinister secret?

Certainly, other parents across the world must have the same feeling of ineptness at this disclosure. Of course, we didn't discover the internet at home until the mid 90's, so it's entirely possible that we simply weren't privy to such pertinent information. It's not like it was the front page news, okay? It was long before information streamed daily at your fingertips. That was around the time our kids learned to lock us out of our own computers by their computer teacher at their private school. Yes, she was immediately bombarded with calls from irate parents that day. But, it taught us to pay closer attention to what our kids were doing on said computer. That was then.

Still, what recourse do we have as parents? Tell our kids we're sorry for having missed this strange addition to an otherwise wonderful way of focusing our children's attention to tiny details? Seems a bit late through the gate to me. "Gee honey, you're 30 but I'm sorry for that bit of exposure during your formative years. I should have been more watchful." However, I'm further convinced that our son hid *Find Waldo* under his bed along with my Victoria's Secrets catalogs, for future use.

That said, we fought constant battles against the porno spam, which was abundant in those days. I mean, they did start the internet, right? Right. Click the wrong link and your child was inundated with multiple windows showing porn. Those were NOT fun times. It was a constant stress. Today, they have controls. Back then, we parents were the controls and we often failed due to sheer ignorance.

The truth is, we were being exposed to a whole new world of information at that time and were just barely able to process even a portion of it. We didn't even have cell phones then. We had car phones, at best. They were large, cumbersome, and we carried them in enormous bags and had wires that plugged into car lighters. No one worried about their conversations being monitored unless they were drug dealers, for crying out loud. Although not quite in *olden times*, we were living in soon-to-be-antiquated technological times, for sure. Boy, were we ever naive.

The threats are even greater today. Parents must monitor their children's use of the internet if they want to provide protection for their most precious gems, children. I shudder to think what kind of darkness awaits future kids on the internet. And we also have to navigate through what they read. Is there no end? It's little wonder today's parents are stressed to the max... You have my sympathy.

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Growing older takes a seriously sick sense of humor, not to mention emotional & physical stamina.... it isn't for the weak minded or faint of heart, I assure you.

I will try to guide you through the aging process with a little humor, tales from the past entwined with stories of today, tips you'll need to keep from looking & acting like an old hag, and the music you'll need to listen to in order to stay "young at heart". Or at least put up a good appearance.